In just a few hours, Kenneth Lee Boyd will be put to death for the murder of his estranged wife and father in law in 1988. The US Supreme Court has rejected his appeal, so, unless Governor Easley grants clemency, which is unlikely, he will meet his Maker sometime shortly after 2am Friday, December 2nd, 2005.
Now, the murders occured in front of his two sons, in cold blood:
Boyd doesn’t deny that he shot and killed Julie Curry Boyd, 36, and her father, 57-year-old Thomas Dillard Curry in rural Rockingham County near the Virginia line. Family members have said Boyd stalked his estranged wife after they separated following 13 stormy years of marriage and once sent a son to her house with a bullet and a note saying the ammunition was intended for her
n Easley’s nearly five years as North Carolina governor, 22 inmates have been executed. He has granted clemency twice: One case suffered from lost evidence; in the other, the defense claimed jurors were racially biased against a black man convicted of killing the husband of a white woman with whom he had been having an affair.
He did the crime, now, he must pay the penalty. The USA has had the death penalty since before the Constitution was written, and, nowhere in any of the Framers writings can you find anything that says that the death penalty should not be used. But, the ACLU has a different opinion
The death penalty is the greatest denial of civil liberties. Innocent people are being sentenced to death. In the past 30 years, 122 inmates were found to be innocent and released from death row. The ACLU is working toward a moratorium on the death penalty.
Now, they can complain about this and that, but, what it comes down to is that there is nothing in the Constitution does not restrict capital punishment. The Framers did not consider it cruel and unusual punishment, if done correctly. Certainly, being drawn and quartered would be considered cruel and unusual. Hanging, something used quite often in Colonial America, would not. A quick drop and snap, and it is over.
Do mistakes happen? Yes. No doubt about that. But, while most Americans believe that Capital punishment is not a deterent, that is because it takes too darn long to put the criminal down. If given their way, though, the ACLU would make sure that none of them are put to sleep. Apparently, they never read the Fifth Amendment, or, did so with the normal Liberal myopia;
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
That tells me that the death penalty is Constitutional. Period.
It comes down to a simple proposition: do the majority of Americans believe that Capital punishment is cruel and unusual in today’s world? The Framers wrote the the Constitution so that it could be Amended. In the case of Amendment VIII (Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted), the People could, by a simple majority, outlaw it by a simple majority, without a new Amendment. And could be reinstituted with same.
But that is something the ACLU would not want. They do not care about the majority. They only care about their opinions, and to hell with anyone who disagrees.
